anewshound You’re suffering from bladder cancer, urinary incontinence or even erectile dysfunction. If that were not bad enough, when you arrive for your appointment, there’s sign there’s a sign on your doctor’s door that reads “If you voted for Obama, seek urologic  care elsewhere. Healthcare reform begins now, not in four years!.”
That has been the experience of patients who went to the office of Dr. Jack Cassell, a urologist based in Mount Dora Florida. Prior to his sudden outburst of fame  as a new right-wing hero,  Cassell was getting  mediocre rating of  2 out 4 stars on a physician website from his patients. Now his ratings are up, as thousands who oppose Obamacare register their support.
Basking in his 15 minutes of fame, Cassell has smirked his way through interviews on CNN, Fox News, and other media outlets, claiming he’s not turned any one away, but acknowledging that some decided to go away.
Since healthcare reform doesn’t go away just because some of his patients do, Â Cassell’s intent is not to inform but to intimidate, to use his medical practice for politics and as a way to spread healthcare reform misinformation.
A doctor who wanted to inform his patients about important legislation would take a completely different approach. He might provide specific information in a waiting room brochure on how the new law relates to his specialty. The patient can read the information, or choose to read Time magazine instead.
As with most tea-baggers, Cassell’s opposition to  reform is based on fear of regulations that do not even exist in health-care reform law, but do appear in right-wing talking points on health-care reform. The fact that his wife is a  conservative candidate running for local office could also be a  factor in his disinformation campaign.
Cassell claims to be concerned about alleged cuts to hospice care. Scaring the elderly about health-care reform has been a main goal of those fighting reform. Cassell clearly hasn’t  spent a single moment checking his facts before appearing on  television.
“Did you have — did you realize that hospice, you know, which is the end-of-life caring, that that’s going to be totally cut in 2012? I mean, not only do they want you to die at a younger age, as they — as they basically ratchet down care, but they want you to die a slow and painful death as well — it’s horrible,” Cassell told Fox & Friends, who of course accepted his statement as fact.
It turns out that hospice care is virtually untouched by reform laws and a range of hospice care associations have praised the healthcare reform legislation.
Rep. Alan Grayson has filed an ethics complaint against Cassell on behalf of a patient who  walked away after reading the sign on Cassell’s door.
“It’s a clear violation of AMA ethics rules- its inhuman to treat another person like that,” Grayson told Countdown host Keith Olbermann. “What’s he’s doing is trying to tear up the social contract..where does it end? When right-wing doctors only treat right-wing patients..?”
Some right-wing doctors have threatened to leave medicine as a result of  healthcare reform. Cassell hasn’t said that, but perhaps one of the unintended consequences of reform would be to eventually weed out doctors like him,  and gradually replace them with physicians with compassion for human beings, and who choose medicine for the right reasons.
